Romeo Garcia
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Flanders, Julia and Matthew L. Jockers. "A Matter of Scale." Keynote Lecture from the
Boston Area Days of Digital Humanities Conference. Northeastern University,
Boston, MA. March 18, 2013.
Abstract: Transcript of a staged debate between Julia Flanders and Matthew L. Jockers
on the question of how scale is impacting research in the digital humanities. The debate
took place on March 18, 2013 at Northeastern University as part of the Boston Area Days
of Digital Humanities Conference.Flanders and Jockers come together to discuss the
battlefield idea of small vs. bid scale. One question that is posed initially is whether big
and small scales are mutually exclusive. The transcription moves from introductions to
assumptions of small and big data. Flanders and Jockers agree that the more closely they
look at micro and macro analysis and close/distant approaches, the more they see that
they are not in conflict or even in contradiction to one another. They both argue and agree
upon on the idea that every category of metadata has the potential to become a facet of
analysis.
Keywords: computational approaches, big data, small data, close approaches,
distant approaches, macro approaches, micro approaches, scale,
Citations (2-3)
N/A
Quotes (2-3)
“This stereotype of ‘big data’ is getting so tiresome!...and, really Julia, I’m a bit tired of it
myself. That is, I’m tired of the big data vs. small data battlefield idea (3).
“So, close or distant reading, whether done with the assistance of the computer or with
the naked eye, is a method dependent upon different levels of focus and attention; at one
moment we focus our critical lens in a way that is meant to call certain aspects of that
poem or passage into our field of view and in that moment we necessarily ignore other
facets that might be seen using a different focus” (16).
“But here I’m interested in going deeper than book level labeling: that is, I want to probe
deeper and be able to say something more than: yes, David Copperfield is a
bildungsroman because my computer tells me so. I mean I want to be able to track the
actual movement and structure of the plot. If we can figure that out, then we’ll be able to
see if there are patterns of expression across time, across cultures” (19).
Questions (1-2)
I wonder, if computational strategies do/can track the actual movement and structure of
plots within novels/texts, how might this take away from the actual self-interpretation of
the plot? I get, technology has the opportunity to track, say how plots move across time,
space, and cultures, but what will we loose in the context of self-interpretation vs.
computer visualization? Accuracy? I am for a combined approach, say of a selfinterpretation first then with computer assistance to see whether or not the human mind
can extract similarly to that of a computer (sorry for the rant-like question).
Romeo Garcia
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Long, Seth. Text Network and Corpus Analysis of the Unabomber Manifesto. 02 Feb.
2013. Web. 02 March 2014.
Abstract: Seth Long because with situating the Unabomber’s manifesto a strong critique
of contemporary techno-capitalist society. Initially, that is what [one] observes with a
reading of the manifesto. Long acknowledges that obviously the manifesto is directed
against technology and leftists. However, what Long is motivated by is to determine
whether the manifesto exhibits such rhetoric explicitly throughout. The methods of
Long’s project include text-network analysis and corpus analysis. These methods are
used to determine degree centrality and betweeness centrality while collecting the usage
of words throughout the manifesto, which run through an algorithm type tool that
highlights the frequency. Text network analysis and corpus analysis enabled Long to
conclude that will the manifesto reads as attack on technology and leftists, the words
through which most meanings flow indicate/suggest that the manifesto was about society
as a whole, its people and system. In fact, text network analysis reveals that the antileftist plot is not a continuous theme in the text but rather takes the form of bookends.
Long illuminates this with examples of text networks.
Keywords: Unabomber, text network analysis, bookends, degree centrality,
betweeness centrality
Citations (2-3)
N/A
Quotes (2-3)
“The two most important network visualizations, in my opinion, show nodes with the
highest levels of Betweenness Centrality and the highest levels of Degree Centrality”
(n.p.)
“One thing a text network does, beyond providing an interesting visualization, is to point
the researcher in the direction of terms and n-grams that might be explored more
granularly in a corpus analysis tool, such as the NLTK” (n.p.)
“The dispersion of technology and technological provides another striking pattern. More
than a third of the text passes before Kaczynski begins to deploy these words in earnest,
even though a surface reading of the text leaves the reader with the impression that
technological anxieties anchor every aspect of the manifesto” (n.p.)
“His ire is most obviously directed at leftists, but more subtly, the motivated energy of
his manifesto is pointed in all directions at all society in its malformed, destructive
development” (n.p.)
Questions (1-2)
In our other readings this week, the idea of information being transmitted over time and
space has been emphasized. I wonder how (I am not sure if it already in use) Long’s
Romeo Garcia
project with text network analysis and corpus analysis can be used to assist in this
understanding?
3
Romeo Garcia
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Losh, Elizabeth. “Nowcasting/Futurecasting: Big Data, Prognostication, and the
Rhetorics of Scale.” Rhetoric and the Digital Humanities Forthcoming: 439-453.
Print.
Abstract: As the information about an expanding number of discrete cultural producers
grows dramatically to include data about geographical location, social networks, and
other highly granular forms of context about the most minute characteristics of
overlapping networked publics, digital humanities projects need to include those who
understand the fluidities of the rhetorical situation, specialize in research questions that
explore the nuances of audience and purpose, map assemblages of strategies and tactics,
and uncover the local embedded in the global.
Keywords: big data, rhetoric, code, software, prognostication
Citations (2-3)
Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2002. Print.
McLuhan, Marshall, and Quentin Fiore. The Medium is the Massage. New York:
Random House, 1967. Print.
Quotes (2-3)
“Part of our emerging profession’s resistance to working with born digital materials that
are generated in real time can also be traced to an understandable desire to preserve the
remainders of disciplinary convention in an already interdisciplinary field, as the digital
humanities inevitably becomes more like novel forms of deep analysis with
mathematically complex systems made possible by powerful computation” (442).
“Although there are many spatial metaphors in these digital humanities calls to action
that include “distant reading,” “style space,” and “scale” that can be mapped, charted,
graphed, and visualized, this is also a rhetoric of temporal exigency implicitly at work
that involves the production of interpretive scholarship as well as the production of
cultural objects of study” (448-49).
Questions (1-2)
What other terms can/should be suggested to replace ‘digging’ or mining or competition?
Could the absence of human agency be the recognition of dichotomies created by
machismo rhetoric?
Romeo Garcia
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Rockwell, Geoffrey. “What is Text Analysis, Really?” Literary and Linguistic
Computing 18.2 (2003): 209-220. Print.
Abstract: The author revisits the question of what text analysis could be. He traces the
tools from their origin in the concordance. He argues that text-analysis tools produce new
texts generates from queries through processes implemented on the computer. These new
texts come from the decomposition of original texts and recomposition into hybrid new
works for interpretation. The author ends by presenting a portal model for how textanalysis tools can be made available to the community
Keywords: text analysis, concordance, hermeneutical principles, hybrid texts
Citations (2-3)
Howard-Hill, T.H. Literary Concordances: A Complete Handbook for the Preparation of
Manual and Computer Concordances. Pergamon Press, 1979. Print.
John Bradley, and Geoffrey Rockwell. “Watching Scepticism: Computer Assisted
Visualization and Hume’s Dialogue.” Research in Humanities Computing 5
(1996): 32-47. Print.
Quotes (2-3)
“The confrontation succinctly opened again the question of the relationship between how
we represent texts, how we use them, and our theories of textuality” (209)
“The portal ironically could be the backdoor through which our colleagues could be
introduced to the playful work of humanities computing” (217).
Questions (1-2)
Given that there is an almost 11 year gap, are there portals that assist with the ease-of-use
that go beyond those provided by the commercial publishers of e-texts today?
Romeo Garcia
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Urban, Greg. Metaculture: How Culture Moves Through the World. University of
Minnesota Press, 2001. Print.
Abstract: How does culture move across time and space? How is culture socially
transmitted and what makes culture move? One argument is that culture is already in
motion, but how is what Urban attempts to take on. Urban addresses the complex nature
of culture by emphasizing the role of metaculture in the acceleration of culture. Urban’s
argument is that metaculture affects acceleration. Accelerative reshapes social spaces
instead of culture being replicated by interia alone. According to Urban, “Intertial culture
does not reshape space…However, inertia can be harnessed by culture” (18). Therefore,
accelerative properties (and intertial to an extent) takes the “old cultural elements…and
fuses them into new wholes” (32). Metaculture constructs ‘newness’ or maintains
tradition and that is the force behind accelerative properties.
Keywords: acceleration, deceleration, metaculture, culture, modernity, social
spaces
Citations (2-3)
Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. Basic Books, 1977. Print.
Schell, Jonathan. The Fate of the Earth and The Abolition. Stanford University Press,
2000. Print.
Quotes (2-3)
“Social spaces is reconfigured, however incrementally or radically, by the motion
associated with specific cultural objects” (24).
“structure is in fact not prior to movement, in some absolute sense, but rather a derivative
of movement. It is not that structure does not exist, it is rather that structure is a
consequence of the way in which cultural elements move through space and time” (32).
Questions (1-2)
I am not sure what Urban means by, “Acceleration therefore produces the illusion of
prior structure” (32). Is it really an illusion or is it the crossing of past meaning into the
new? Isn’t mean a form of structure?